Tall (6'4") with blond boyish looks, Jon Voight burst into public awareness with his Academy Award-nominated turn as Joe Buck, a naive, blue-eyed Texan come to conquer NYC with his sexual prowess, in John Schlesinger's "Midnight Cowboy" (1969), which has been labeled one of the signature films of the 1960s. His bumpkin as a victim of a dysfunctional upbringing was years ahead of its time, a character so pathetic, so needy, so vulnerable ... and yet likable, because he is that lost soul we see in ourselves. Prior to his breakthrough, Voight had enjoyed some success on the boards, debuting on Broadway as Rolf Gruber, an Austrian teen sympathetic to the Nazis, in "The Sound of Music" (1961) and returning there in "That Summer, That Fall" (1967). In between, he starred with Robert Duvall in an acclaimed Off-Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge" (1965), meeting "Cowboy" co-star (and fellow Best Actor Oscar nominee) Dustin Hoffman. His first feature role in the little-seen Philip Kaufman-scripted and -directed "Fearless Frank" (shot in 1964, shown at Cannes in 1967 and released in the USA in 1969) was oddly prescient of Joe Buck, another country boy out of his depth in the big city.
Although the Yonkers native would not enjoy comparable acclaim for nearly a decade, Voight proved himself a consistent craftsman in roles like the well-meaning but misguided misfit of "The Revolutionary" and the scheming provisions officer Milo Minderbinder of "Catch-22" (both 1970). Minderbinder, who made his fortune wheeling and dealing in the black market, was a rare foray into villainy for an actor whose sensitive, intellectual Ed could hold his own with Burt Reynolds' compellingly macho Lewis in John Boorman's "Deliverance" (1972), although Reynolds, never better before or since, received the best press. Voight carried the international suspense thriller "The Odessa File" (1974) as the German journalist on the trail of Nazis (particularly Maximilian Schell) in the 60s and then turned in another gem as the white schoolteacher (modeled on writer Pat Conroy) who changes the lives of his black pupils on an isolated island off the coast of South Carolina in Martin Ritt's sentimental "Conrack" (1973). He even went to Europe where he delivered another fine performance as the assistant to police commissioner Ritt (in a rare acting role) in Schell's thriller "End of the Game" (1976).
Timing is everything in life, and with the wounds from the Vietnam War still fresh, Voight won a Best Actor Oscar as the maimed vet who falls for an officer's wife (Jane Fonda) in Hal Ashby's "Coming Home" (1978), the first big Vietnam movie, beating "The Deer Hunter" by several months. The film (which paired screenwriter Waldo Salt and producer Jerome Hellman for the first time since "Midnight Cowboy") provided Voight a terrific part as the once gung-ho Marine, now paralyzed, who overcomes his psychic wounds to help others in the same situation. The actor personified a shattered nation coming to terms with the legacy of an immoral war, creating in the process a stronger male identity for himself.
Unfortunately, as the decade wound down, to the new generation of filmmakers and studio heads, Voight no longer seemed a valuable commodity. Certainly, his choice of material did not help. He was too intelligent for the dumb pug in Franco Zeffirelli's maudlin remake of "The Champ" (1979), and a reteaming with Ashby (and a first foray into screenwriting) on "Lookin' to Get Out" (1982) fared even worse. The sentimental soaper "Table for Five" (1983), in which he played a father trying to establish some rapport with his estranged children, ultimately failed at the box office because of its lack of edge, so five years removed from his Oscar win, the actor clearly found himself adrift, in desperate need of a success.
Andrei Konchalovsky's relentless thriller "Runaway Train" (1985), featuring a screenplay by legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, marked a turning point in Voight's career. Having seen and admired the director's "Siberiade" at Cannes in 1979, he was instrumental in getting Konchalovsky to work in the West and earned his third Best Actor Oscar nomination as the brutal and frightening escaped convict Manny, a far cry from the sensitive, nice-guy parts of the past. His face distorted by make-up, he went way out on the edge with his non-stop risk-taking, creating an unforgettable, over-the-top character that was a precursor for work to come. However, after a solid performance as the insensitive, alcoholic father of "Desert Bloom" (1986), Voight, who had always been a very selective actor, took what amounted to an eight-year hiatus from features and brought his talents to the small screen, working on projects in which he had particular interest, such as portraying Dr. Robert Gale, who flew to the Soviet Union to aid those affected by radiation poisoning, in "Chernobyl: The Final Warning" (TNT, 1991). Long known as a champion of indigenous people, particularly the Hopi Indians, he gave an award-winning performance in "The Last of His Tribe" (HBO, 1992), as real-life anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, discoverer of the last surviving member of a small Indian tribe (Graham Greene) in pre-WWI California.
Voight's star was on the rise again. He succeeded Tommy Lee Jones as Woodrow F. Call for the sequel "Return to Lonesome Dove" (CBS, 1993) and also poked fun at himself in a memorable 1994 episode of "Seinfeld" (NBC) before dipping his toe into directing waters with the Showtime kidpic "The Tin Soldier" (1995, co-directed by Gregory Gieras). Back on the big screen, he copped kudos for his supporting role as a professional thief in Michael Mann's "Heat" (1995), a critically praised crime story starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro which opened the door for a veritable flood of high-profile character turns. He assumed the Jim Phelps role (from Peter Graves) for Brian De Palma's update of the 60s TV classic "Mission: Impossible" (1996), and was very effective in John Singleton's "Rosewood" (1997) as a man profoundly torn between his affection for his black neighbors and his need to maintain his standing with his fellow whites. He also contributed a small role as a wily, blind Indian to Oliver Stone's "U-Turn" and chewed the scenery as the evil poacher in "Anaconda" (both 1997)
The Voight express roared on with his smooth, sinister performance as a big-time lawyer representing a shady insurance firm in Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of "John Grisham's 'The Rainmaker'" (1997). He then reteamed with Boorman for "The General" (1998), a fine black-and-white picture which featured the actor (complete with believable Irish accent) as a policeman in pursuit of Celtic super-criminal Martin Cahill (Brendan Gleeson). Adding two more portraits to his rogues gallery, he portrayed a ruthless National Security Agency official in "Enemy of the State" (also 1998) and a "win-at-all-costs" Texas high school football coach in "Varsity Blues" (1999), a flick starring teen heartthrob James Van Der Beek. Voight grew his hair long to play the venerable ancient mariner of Genesis in the NBC miniseries "Noah's Ark" (1999), and he also served as executive producer of Showtime's "The Fixer" (1998, in which he headlined).
In 2001, he offered a trio of performances, although two owed more to prosthetics than actual acting chops. Adopting a British accent, he was seen in a quasi-fantasy sequence as Lord Croft, the missing father of the titular "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider", portrayed by real-life daughter Angelina Jolie. In "Pearl Harbor", Voight impersonated US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was virtually unrecognizable under the makeup which was also the case in his charming Oscar-nominated turn as sportscaster Howard Cosell in the Michael Mann-directed biopic "Ali". The latter took some liberties in the real-life relationship between the TV star and the boxer (played by Will Smith), but his characterization provided an emotional core to the film. That same year, the acotr also turned up on the small screen in the acclaimed NBC miniseries "Uprising," for which he received a 2002 Emmy nomination. Enjoying his in-demand status--even as his relationship with his daughter self-destructed in a series of on-camera pleas, confrontations and accusations--Voight continued to work steadily on televison in the made-forTv-movies "Second String" (2002) and "Jasper, Texas" (2003), and in feature films such as the family friendly sleeper hit "Holes" (2003), based on the bestselling young readers' book, in which he played Mr. Sir, the overseer of a bizarre children's correctional center, adding edge and depth in his scenes with Sigiounrey Weaver bu refusing to play to caricature. In 2004 Voigt was part of the stellar cast assembled by director Jonathan Demme for the remake of the conspiracy classic "The Manchurian Candidate," with the actor playing a highly moral politician who uncovers a plot to plant his daughter's ex-paramour (Liev Schriber) as a sleeper agent in the White House. That same year he co-starred in director Bob Clark's "Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2" (2004), the sequel to Clark's unlikely 1996 smash "Baby Geniuses."